422 Phoridae. 



412) records the American species epeirae bred from egg cocoons of 

 Epeira and nedae from Neda marginalis, but without further remarks. 



According to the above, it seems that at all events fasciata is 

 a parasite, and that is perhaps the case with all the species in the 

 genus, as also the American species seem to live in a similar way. 

 The curious, ovipositor-like shape of the end of the female abdomen 

 also points in this direction, and this shape is, I think, present in all 

 species, since Schmitz mentions it among the generic characters, 

 though he only says it is generally present (Jaarb. Natuurh. Genootsch. 

 Limburg, 1919, 126). There is , however, about the parasitism some 

 facts to take into consideration; there is the curious observation, 

 mentioned by Martelli and Lichtenstein, that the imagines sucks 

 the larvæ and pupæ of the Coccinellids; I do not think it impossible 

 that this sucking has the intention to weaken the pupæ, even if a 

 sucked pupa may be able to develop, when no eg^ is laid on it, for I 

 do not think the species as imago feeds on the larvæ and pupæ, 

 they are at all events certainly not exclusively dependent on them. 

 Wood remarks that he has seen the females of fasciata swarming at 

 an old, half decayed tree, and I have always taken the female of 

 berolinensis on and swarming around ulcerated spots on trees ; though 

 it seems to be only the females which are swarming thus, they are cer- 

 tainly not present liere for depositing the eggs, but must be thought 

 to seek these piaces for food. The males of these species are not pre- 

 sent in the swarms and are rarely met with. 



The genus Phalacrotophora was created by Enderlein in 1912 

 (Stett. Ent. Zeitg. 1912, 21), but insufficiently characterized; it was, 

 therefore, not accepted by Malloch (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 43, 1912, 

 518), while Brues, on the other hånd, accepted it. Schmitz likewise 

 accepts it (1. c.) af ter study of the type-species, and he gives a new 

 generic diagnosis ; the author liere lays great stress on the arrangement 

 of the frontal bristles, and considers them as arranged in four trans- 

 verse rows; I am not able to see that this is so, the four anterior bristles 

 I take as belonging to one row^ just as in the picta-group of Aphio- 

 chaeta, and fully homologous with the four bristles of the anterior 

 row in any Aphiochaeta-, the lower bristles of the row are sometimes 

 placed distant from the eye-margin {fasciata, herolinensis), sometimes 

 vertically below the outer, at the eye-margin {bniesiana). Nevertheless 

 I keep the genus, because I think it natural; its main characters are, 

 I think, the high frons and the arrangement of the frontal bristles 

 in connection with the double row of bristles on the posterior tibiæ, 



